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Scaffolding is expected to start going up late this week at 2 Columbus Circle, opening the way for a controversial transformation of Edward Durell Stone's building into a new home for the Museum of Arts and Design.stones building has its faults and cloepfil's new re-design is great. i still think its the wrong thing to do though.
"We are remaking a building," Brad Cloepfil, the project's architect, said yesterday. "Restructuring it, recladding it, letting the light in."
no-bid katrina reconstruction
reopening NO by zip code
Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect--the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.
What this storm hit was largely American auto-centric sprawl that was largely below sea-level, wrapped by extensive levees, exposed to huge volumes of water, and sinking in the peat of the backswamps. This development pattern, and the resource extraction industries that supported it, created the conditions for this disaster to occur. This was not an act of God, nor a natural disaster -- this was a public policy disaster. New Orleanians need to understand this in order to make well-informed decisions about what and how to rebuild. That means reflecting on public policies towards coastal erosion, the taming of the Mississippi River, sprawl, and sea-level rise due to global warming.
Disaster. Relief. Housing.
The words fairly echo with dismal images of people forced to live in squalor, desperation and sorrow -- crowds packed into stadiums, improvised shantytowns, rows of identical trailers, school cafeterias turned into shelters. Yet these words also evokes a different picture -- where shelter fulfills its highest, most utopian function. Where a simple structure can provide comfort and warmth and dignity when all else has failed. Where housing literally offers relief from disaster.
good bye public planning process. the taking of snohetta at ground zero 1, 2, 3
Las Vegas buildings seem forever either to be getting built or getting torn down, and few have ever been considered for any sort of architectural preservation. On the other hand, few are like La Concha motel, or at least the 1,000-square-foot lobby that remains. Designed by the architect Paul Revere Williams - whose work includes the four-legged terminal at Los Angeles International Airport - the 44-year-old lobby is considered one of the last and best-preserved examples of 1950's Googie architecture.going to miss all the american googie that dates from around the time of my birth. and holding with the notion that 2 cc is kind of googie too
The methods of determining the value of historic preservation vary widely, and several challenges persist in applying economic methods to the field. This discussion paper, which is followed with an extensive and annotated bibliography, reviews the current findings on the value of historic preservation and the methods used to assess that value, making the case for needed improvement if the economics of preservation is to more objectively and rigorously quantify the effects of historic preservation.from the brookings institution
Toward that end, the paper calls for a hybrid of the most promising analytical methods and more collaboration across research fields. By combining methods, the particular shortcomings or blind spots of different methods can perhaps offset one another. Without further refinement, the ability to make conclusive, generalized statements about the economics of preservation will remain elusive.
the swimmer ~~\o/~~ w/ link to full 1968 v canby nyt review